ANIMAL rights protests coupled with Oxford’s community spirit have helped one author get her first book published.

Sarah Loving was overjoyed when her book Fifty Fifty was accepted for publication. And she says Oxford has played a big part in her success.

Not only was the story inspired by the animal rights protests in Parks Road, but the local community helped in her path to publication. Now she is harnessing the community spirit to help sell her book.

First she took a stall at East Oxford Farmers’ Market, now Gibbons Bakery, opposite SS Mary and John School, is selling her book beside the bread rolls.

“The book is with a mainstream publisher, and it’s on sale in big shops like Waterstone’s,” she said. “But the bread shop is like a village shop – everyone goes there on the way to school.”

Diane Gibbons, who runs the bakery with her husband Roy, said: “It’s been quite a conversation point.”

Ms Loving first came to Oxford to read English at Balliol College, then taught basic skills for Oxfordshire County Council’s adult education programme. Her husband persuaded her to join an evening class at the former Peers School run by children’s illustrator Korky Paul – the artist behind Winnie the Witch, who lives in North Oxford – which set her on the road to becoming a writer.

“I learned that I was not going to be an illustrator, but I wrote a couple of picture book texts to illustrate and he was massively complimentary,” said Ms Loving.

Encouraged, Ms Loving wrote some short stories. By then, she had gave birth to her daughter Martha, now 13 and took voluntary redundancy so she could spend more time writing, after Stephanie Hale, a parent at SS Mary and John School who runs a literary consultancy, put her in touch with an agent.

At the third attempt, she hit the jackpot with Fifty Fifty, a novel for young adults featuring Gil, an angry teenager at odds with his scientist father.

She said: “The story was inspired by the controversy about the animal research lab in Parks Road. I have followed it in the newspaper and been amazed at the lengths animal activists will go to, planning to harm people and possibly kill people to try to protect the rights of animals.”

Fifty Fifty, written under the penname S L Powell, is published by Piccadilly Press at £6.99.